FILE - In this file photo taken on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, Women attend a prayer meeting calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped girls of the government secondary school in Chibok, in Abuja, Nigeria. Extremists have abducted 91 more people, including toddlers as young as 3, in weekend attacks on villages in Nigeria, witnesses said Tuesday, June 24, 2014, providing fresh evidence of the military's failure to curb an Islamic uprising and the government's inability to provide security. The victims included 60 girls and women, some of whom were married, and 31 boys, witnesses said. A local official confirmed the abductions, but security forces denied them. Nigeria's government and military have been internationally embarrassed by their slow response to the abductions of more than 200 schoolgirls who were kidnapped April 15 and remain captive. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba,File) less

FILE - In this file photo taken on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, Women attend a prayer meeting calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped girls of the government secondary school in Chibok, in Abuja, Nigeria. ... more

Photo: Sunday Alamba, Associated Press

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FILE - In this Monday, May 19, 2014 file photo, Martha Mark, the mother of kidnapped school girl Monica Mark, cries as she display her photo in the family house, in Chibok, Nigeria. Islamic extremists have abducted 60 more girls and women and 31 boys from villages in northeast Nigeria, witnesses said Tuesday. Security forces denied the kidnappings. Nigeria's government and military have attracted widespread criticism for their slow response to the abductions of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped April 15 (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba,File) less

FILE - In this Monday, May 19, 2014 file photo, Martha Mark, the mother of kidnapped school girl Monica Mark, cries as she display her photo in the family house, in Chibok, Nigeria. Islamic extremists have ... more

Photo: Sunday Alamba, Associated Press

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Nigeria suffers more kidnappings, witnesses say

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Maiduguri, Nigeria --

Extremists have abducted 91 more people, including toddlers as young as 3, in weekend attacks on villages in Nigeria, witnesses said Tuesday, providing fresh evidence of the military's failure to curb an Islamic uprising and the government's inability to provide security.

The kidnappings come less than three months after more than 200 schoolgirls were taken in a mass abduction that embarrassed Nigeria's government and military because of their slow response. Those girls are still being held captive.

The most recent victims included 60 girls and women, some of whom were married, and 31 boys, witnesses said.

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A local official confirmed the abductions, but security forces denied them.

There was no way to safely and independently confirm the report from Kummabza, 95 miles from Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and headquarters of a military state of emergency that has failed to curtail near-daily attacks by fighters of the militant Islamic group Boko Haram.

Villagers slain

Vigilante leader Aji Khalil said Tuesday the abductions took place Saturday in an attack that killed four villagers. Khalil lives in Maiduguri but gets reports daily from other vigilante groups that have had some success in repelling Boko Haram with primitive weapons.

A senior councilor from the village's Damboa local government said abductions had occurred but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give information to reporters. He said the reports came from elderly survivors of the attack who had walked 15 miles to the relative safety of other villages.

An intelligence officer with Nigeria's Department of State Security also said there had been a mass abduction, but he said it occurred in Kummabza and three nearby villages between June 13 and 15, and that no one knows the actual number abducted. He also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

There was no way to reconcile the confusion, which also surrounded the first mass abduction in mid-April.

Accounts questioned

Several prominent Nigerians questioned whether those abductions had taken place, including first lady Patience Jonathan, who claimed the reports were fabricated to discredit her husband's administration.

Last week, a presidential committee investigating the April kidnappings stressed that they did happen and clarified the number of students who have been kidnapped. It said there were 395 students at the school - 119 who escaped during the siege of the school and 57 who escaped in the first couple of days of their abduction, leaving 219 unaccounted for.

John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria who is an analyst with the Council of Foreign Relations, predicted that kidnappings would continue because, for Boko Haram, the strategy has been "remarkably successful: It focuses attention on the shortcomings of the Nigerian government."

The latest abductions were the subject of speculation at a daily rally Tuesday in the capital of Abuja, an ongoing protest to keep attention on the prolonged trauma of the girls from the village of Chibok. Various speakers worried about the fate of the new victims.

The rally to "Bring Back Our Girls" is organized by a group of women from all tribes, religions and ages - an unusual display of unity in a country divided about equally between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.